Muslim Community Mourns 9/11
Members of El Paso’s Muslim community gathered to grieve and remember the Sept. 11 attacks.
They held a forum at the Raindrop Turkish House on Saturday. The message of the talk, held in East El Paso, was tolerance, acceptance and peace.
Mohammed Nurudeen Alhassan, an Imam (leader of religious activities), admited the 9/11 attacks were tragic for everyone, regardless of religion.
“A lot of brothers that I know, Muslim brothers, they lost their brothers in this building also,” said Alhassan. “They’re all crying, so we all share these tears with them.”
According to Alhassan, the terrorist attacks were an atrocity that he’s been trying to disassociate from the mainstream Islamic religion for nearly a decade.
“In every religion you have evil people,” insisted Mohammed. “You have wrongdoers in every religion, its not just Islam. Islam doesn’t teach you to do evil, it teaches you to be a very good person.”
Mohammed hopes to inform El Pasoans on what it truly means to be Muslim, a religion that he insists, rejects violence.
“Our job as Muslims is to explain it to people. We have to explain it to everybody who doesn’t understand and we leave it for them to judge,” said Mohammed.
A representative of the Institute of Interfaith Dialogue proposes discussion and understanding as a way to break from harmful misconceptions about Muslims and their religious beliefs.
“The best way to eliminate or to solve the problem of these misunderstandings is dialogue,” said Sabri Agachan. “we must get together and know each other.”
